IOLM <5%. Iron is slightly up, like it was last winter. Overall, pretty boring but we're well on the way to 200k.

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The answer to 80% of BITOG questions: Read the book, follow directions.Changing oil is not maintenance. Maintenance is the science of inspecting equipment to find and fix things before they break.

The moly seems to trail off after the first five reports. Formulation change or different oil?

Nope, same oil from the first change.

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The answer to 80% of BITOG questions: Read the book, follow directions.Changing oil is not maintenance. Maintenance is the science of inspecting equipment to find and fix things before they break.

My thoughts: I must say that's a nice trend going there. Kudos and keep at it. While you're a far distance from being able to ascertain a micro study, you're numbers compare very favorably to macro data. The 5.0L Coy motor is a good engine for sure. You could certainly stretch out the OCIs further as a test if you wanted. I realize you may not be comfortable with that, but the data shows it's worth consideration. Wear rates are very low, contamination is essentially non-existent, and other parameters (vis, acid/base) are showing no ill effects to wear.

What others might say: If you believed some other folks on this site, then your oil is "shagged" and worthless and you should have OCId far sooner on every cycle because the few samples that you did with TBN/TAN clearly show the oil flipping (inverting, cross-over, whatever one wishes to call it ...). So, despite the incredibly consistent wear performance and desirable outputs, regardless of the low contamination, your inputs show you're a fool. You'd better hurry up and change the oil more often or your engine will most certainly self-destruct, according to their mantra. Your oil acid/base are inverting probably around that exposure. If we were to believe them, you should OCI every 5k miles, just going on the inputs that are out of their defined specs.

What's the difference in the two viewpoints? I focus on results. I look at a lube/engine combination and analyze the relationship in terms of the lube's purpose; that being the lube is there to serve the engine. If the engine is happy, then the lube it doing it's job; that of reducing wear. When an input changes but the output does not change, it's reasonable to logically deduce that the input is NOT a controlling factor in wear, at least at that stage. Although acid flipped base, nothing bad happened. I focus on outputs, and use inputs to initial more scrutiny if warranted. Inputs are important, but not as a cause to OCI; rather as a trigger to pay ever closer attention to what's going on. Something that goes out of spec may or may not create an immediate causation to OCI; one needs to look with open eyes and not blind obedience to some spec.

Other focus on inputs. They look at a lube and give highest consideration to the lube's properties; that being regardless of how the engine is reacting, it's only the lube properties that should trigger an OCI. So despite the fact that wear is under control and there is no contamination present, they would change oil due acid in your UOAs. If you were to UOA a few times at 5k miles, we'd be able to determine of that was often enough, or maybe even more often? If wear is low, but the vis is out of grade, then OCI. If wear is high, but vis is on-spec, then don't OCI. They focus on the inputs, and don't want to give credence to the outputs. They believe that wear metals do not tell a tale worthy of listening to, and therefore ignore wear data and focus only on the lube parameters (such as vis, FP, acid/base, etc).

So depending upon what paradigm you want to believe, the UOAs indicate that your engine is either doing great, or about to self-destruct.

Edited by dnewton3 (06/27/1707:12 AM)

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The act of preventative maintenance, in and of itself, is FAR MORE important than brand/grade/base choices among lubes and filters. - under maintaining something is akin to abuse/neglect; that can kill equipment by shortening the lifespan- over maintaining something has never been proven to be anything but a waste of time and money

My thoughts: I must say that's a nice trend going there. Kudos and keep at it. While you're a far distance from being able to ascertain a micro study, you're numbers compare very favorably to macro data. The 5.0L Coy motor is a good engine for sure. You could certainly stretch out the OCIs further as a test if you wanted. I realize you may not be comfortable with that, but the data shows it's worth consideration. Wear rates are very low, contamination is essentially non-existent, and other parameters (vis, acid/base) are showing no ill effects to wear.

What others might say: If you believed some other folks on this site, then your oil is "shagged" and worthless and you should have OCId far sooner on every cycle because the few samples that you did with TBN/TAN clearly show the oil flipping (inverting, cross-over, whatever one wishes to call it ...). So, despite the incredibly consistent wear performance and desirable outputs, regardless of the low contamination, your inputs show you're a fool. You'd better hurry up and change the oil more often or your engine will most certainly self-destruct, according to their mantra. Your oil acid/base are inverting probably around that exposure. If we were to believe them, you should OCI every 5k miles, just going on the inputs that are out of their defined specs.

What's the difference in the two viewpoints? I focus on results. I look at a lube/engine combination and analyze the relationship in terms of the lube's purpose; that being the lube is there to serve the engine. If the engine is happy, then the lube it doing it's job; that of reducing wear. When an input changes but the output does not change, it's reasonable to logically deduce that the input is NOT a controlling factor in wear, at least at that stage. Although acid flipped base, nothing bad happened. I focus on outputs, and use inputs to initial more scrutiny if warranted. Inputs are important, but not as a cause to OCI; rather as a trigger to pay ever closer attention to what's going on. Something that goes out of spec may or may not create an immediate causation to OCI; one needs to look with open eyes and not blind obedience to some spec.

Other focus on inputs. They look at a lube and give highest consideration to the lube's properties; that being regardless of how the engine is reacting, it's only the lube properties that should trigger an OCI. So despite the fact that wear is under control and there is no contamination present, they would change oil due acid in your UOAs. If you were to UOA a few times at 5k miles, we'd be able to determine of that was often enough, or maybe even more often? If wear is low, but the vis is out of grade, then OCI. If wear is high, but vis is on-spec, then don't OCI. They focus on the inputs, and don't want to give credence to the outputs. They believe that wear metals do not tell a tale worthy of listening to, and therefore ignore wear data and focus only on the lube parameters (such as vis, FP, acid/base, etc).

So depending upon what paradigm you want to believe, the UOAs indicate that your engine is either doing great, or about to self-destruct.

I always value your input on the subject. I look at stretching drain intervals a little differently. Maintenance is not changing oil. Maintenance is about inspecting the vehicle thoroughly to find things that need attention and making repairs before they cause problems. From that standpoint, I don't want to go over 10k without taking a good, careful inspection of CV boots (4WD), wheel seals, fluid leaks, corrosion issues and anything else that indicates a coming repair. As long as I'm under there changing the oil is no big deal.

_________________________
The answer to 80% of BITOG questions: Read the book, follow directions.Changing oil is not maintenance. Maintenance is the science of inspecting equipment to find and fix things before they break.